Serial Cleaners Xbox Review

We’ve all seen the bloody aftermath of a criminal shootout in the movies. Those, oftentimes powerful, balletic displays of violence leave a trail of carnage in their wake. Blood, bodies and viscera. And there’ve been enough games letting us be the ones sowing such carnage. But what happens after, when all the smoke has dissipated and the smell of powder is all but gone? Who cleans up the mess and keeps our cinematic antagonists – and videogame avatars – out of the electric chair?

Set during the gritty 90’s and evoking the crime stories and movies of that era, whether noir-ish or grungy, Serial Cleaners answers that very question for you. Placing you in the shoes of one of four Cleaners, Serial Cleaners has you cleaning up the crime scenes after those left standing have hot-footed it before the cops can arrive. Your job? Leave not a trace of evidence behind. Oh and don’t get caught in the process.

Viewed from an isometric perspective, Serial Cleaners has you, you got it, cleaning up the crime scenes. But not for the cops. No, you’re on the bad guy’s payroll here and you have to make sure that all evidence is disposed of. Nothing incriminating can be left behind. That means you have to get rid of bodies, body parts, find all the evidence and clean up the waves of blood splashed all over the place.

Your objectives are pretty simple in concept, but it’s how you have to go about doing them that gives the game its challenge. Oftentimes, you’ll be arriving at a crime scene moments before the cops do, sometimes well after, and you’ll have to accomplish your objectives while avoiding the flatfoots during their patrols of the area. This turns Serial Cleaners into a stealth puzzle game where you have to plan out your moves before initiating your plan of attack. Where your disposal points are – usually your car – and how to get everything there, needs to be plotted out while paying attention to the cop’s patrol patterns.

Each of our four cleaners has a standard set of moves to use, along with specific special abilities that give them all a different approach to how you complete a level. Psycho, for instance, can cut up bodies with a chainsaw. While it can bring the cops running, it can also make them faint if they see him in the process of dismembering someone. Vip3r, as the hacker extraordinaire, can hack computers to control electronics and create distractions and Lati can use her graffiti skills to gather a whole bunch of cops into one location for a time.

Your standard skill set lets you vacuum up blood. Yes, that’s right, with a vacuum cleaner. You can drag or carry bodies, along with wrapping them in the plastic, crouch and hide in or under objects. Larger pieces of evidence can be used to knock cops down if you throw it at them. While each level is designed for a specific cleaner and their skill sets, this is pretty much all there is to Serial Cleaners gameplay. And honestly, this simplicity works wonders for the game. Each level is its own little obstacle course of puzzles that feels rewarding to clear.

One area that the game does suffer in, is its A.I., which is far too simplistic. Messing around with bodies and evidence will have them walk around for a bit before going back to their patrol routes. The same happens if they see you and you can duck behind something in time. They don’t investigate the areas as they should. Another area that I did find a bit frustrating, was just how slow the Cleaners move, even when they’re not carrying something. If a cop does get your scent or is too close to you, it can be close to impossible to avoid the business end of their truncheons.

To the developer’s credit, the narrative goes deeper into these characters, their jobs and their lives more than I was expecting. Watching Vip3r choose a life of crime while Bob falls back into his old ways after going clean, adds an appreciated depth to the game that I was not expecting. While not all of it lands, what does adds some level of poignancy to a group that could simply have remained puzzle-solving cyphers.

Visually Serial Cleaners opts for a low polygon stylised approach to its visuals that also fits the overall game nicely. The visual representation of 90’s New York grunge, grit and grime effectively portray a seedy world you wouldn’t want to be a part of. The game also sports a pretty neat soundtrack.

Serial Cleaners won’t set your world on fire, but as a stealth puzzle game where one of your greatest assets is a vacuum, it’s an incredible amount of fun to create a streamlined run of evidence disposal and avoidance.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5
Developers: Draw Distance, Draw Distance S.A.
Publishers: Draw Distance, 505 Games, Zhiyuan Network

Enjoy the review? want to read more of our reviews? then click right here to be whisked away to the realm of our opinions.